The Story of
Geordie Travels
By Anthony William
For many years people would tell me I should write. A blog, a book – it didn’t matter; ‘just get your experiences down on paper’, they’d say encouragingly.
Of those voices telling me to pick up the pen, none so were louder than that of my best friend and frequent travel partner; Em. Sadly however, such bursts of enthusiasm for me to document our travels together fell on deaf ears. Until at least, one fateful night spent with a lovely pair of Canadian couchsurfers (Liz and Nate), in our cockroach infested apartment in Taiwan.
Suddenly, beer fuelled persuasion techniques levelled at me by Liz, Nate, and Emilija, resulted in the metaphorical penny dropping in my head and I could see the benefit in not only putting our experiences into word, but opening myself up to the public and sharing information relating to the fact that I was aiming to travel the entire world in my wheelchair.
My reluctance to actually commence writing may have come from a lack of experience. I was worried that whatever I managed to muster wouldn’t quite be good enough, and that people would laugh at my writing style and my distinct lack of understanding when it comes to spelling and grammar.
I was also concerned that I may come across as a bit of a fraud. Despite being disabled myself, I knew little in the way of accessibility – other than what I needed myself to get by in life. If I was going to become this ‘disability travel guru’ that people kept pinning their hopes on for me to achieve, I was going to need to brush up on a lot of things. What’s accessible for me might be hellish for someone else – and vice versa.
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude” – Scott Hamilton
Armed with my camera, my laptop, and a new sense of vigour, ‘The Geordie Traveller’ was born. Now, for those of you reading this who aren’t familiar with what a ‘Geordie’ actually is, it’s essentially just anybody who happens to be from the area of Newcastle, in the United Kingdom – of which I am, and thus, The Geordie Traveller became my brand name.
Since then I’ve shortened the name to just ‘Geordie Travels’, both for convenience sake and also to accommodate those who live their lives using American English – perplexing them immensely as to why I’d be spelling the word traveller with two L’s.
My personal mission is simple. I’d like to become the first wheelchair user to visit every single country in the world. To the best of my knowledge this is a feat which has never been achieved, although there’s some extremely inspiring disabled trailblazers out there that are well and truly setting a pace of which I can only hope to someday emulate.
At the time of writing I’ve travelled to roughly 25% of the countries which make up this magnificently diverse planet, and I’m all too aware that I’ve got a heck of a long way for me to go yet. If on my travels I can also raise a little awareness as to the plight of fellow disabled people in less developed countries around the world, then that would just make my whole dream all the more worthwhile. My aim for this blog, if and when it grows in popularity, is to use my platform as a springboard for more philanthropic work – helping those who need it most, disabled and non-disabled.
Education is the key to unlocking equality, and I look forward to slashing as many preconceptions about disability as I can along my journey.
I hope you’ll join me.